While most people plan parties and cakes for themselves on their birthday, Nodumo Dumza Vuba packs her car with blankets, slippers, school shoes, sanitary pads and snack packs, and drives back to the Eastern Cape villages that raised her.
For more than a decade, she has used her birthday month, March, to ensure elderly women are warm, girls do not miss school because of their periods, and foundation-phase pupils have chairs to sit on.
That quiet consistency has earned her a nomination for the Daily Dispatch Local Heroes award.
Affectionately known as Dumza or i-Rheledwane in her home village of eMaRheledwane, Vuba grew up in Ngqushwa, in a modest household where ubuntu and communal responsibility were part of daily life.
She funds the campaign herself, relying on her salary without NGO backing, corporate sponsorship or public funding.
“I don’t do this because I have a lot,” Vuba said.
“I do this because I remember what it felt like to have little.
“If the little I have can change one child’s morning, then it is enough.”
Her campaign focuses on three groups she says are often overlooked: elderly women, adolescent girls and pupils in under-resourced schools.
For elderly women, she delivers care packs with blankets, slippers and food parcels to help them through winter.
For high school girls, she provides sanitary products and mentorship sessions on health, hygiene and self-worth, addressing period poverty that forces many pupils to stay home each month.
For foundation-phase children, she supplies uniforms, chairs, study mats and classroom stands — basic tools that help make a classroom functional.
Each visit also includes birthday cake and snack packs for children, many of whom tell her it is the first time they have tasted cake.
“Birthdays are supposed to be celebrated,” she said.
“If their families cannot afford it, then I will be the aunt who makes sure they remember their day with joy.”
Each March, she returns to Mgwalana Primary School in eMaRheledwane, Assemblies of God congregations in informal settlements around Reeston, Orange Grove, kwaBhula and Leachesbay under pastor Mzi Nkantsu, and Bhisho Primary School, which she adopted in 2024.
“This is not charity for me. This is community work. It is a calling.
“We say umntu ngumntu ngabantu — I am because we are.
“So when one of us suffers, we all suffer,” Vuba said.
Her approach blends African spirituality and faith-based outreach.
“The church cannot only preach inside four walls,” she said.
“If the child outside is hungry, if the grandmother outside is cold, then the church must be there too. Faith without action is empty.”
Vuba said she started the initiative after noticing elderly women facing neglect, girls missing school because of menstruation, and young pupils struggling because they sat on classroom floors without desks.
“The abuse of elderly persons breaks my heart.
“It breaks me even more to see girls missing school for something as natural as menstruation.”
Nkantsu, who has worked with her in informal settlements in KuGompo for several years, said her consistency was rare.
“Dumza comes every March. She sits with the mothers, she talks to the girls, she kneels to give a child a jersey.
“That is why the community trusts her,” Nkantsu said.
The impact is also clear at Bhisho Full Service School, which teaches more than 1,000 pupils from Bhisho, Qonce and surrounding rural settlements.
Deputy principal Lungile Diko, who nominated Vuba, said the initiative had made a huge difference.
“Many of our pupils are children of unemployed parents, where hardship is part of daily life,” Diko said.
Vuba replaced 50 worn-out grade R chairs and later returned with easels and reading mats for grade 1 and 2 pupils.
“These gestures, simple to some, are monumental to us,” Diko said.
“They remind our pupils that they are seen, valued, and worthy of kindness.”
Vuba said she had no plans to formalise the initiative into a foundation.
“The informality is intentional. It keeps me close to the ground,” she said.
For now, she is preparing for March 2027, setting aside money from her salary to buy the next round of blankets, sanitary pads and school shoes.
“I am just one person. But if every person did one thing for their community, imagine what would change.”
Daily Dispatch